Hyperbaria

I spend the most of my days in an “HBOT” chamber - a Hyper Baric Chamber Level 7 which, HBOT CL7, is a rental until my custom crate comes in from Brandenburg. No one quite has the rigorous attention to detail in the pressurized-chamber industry like the Germans.

Author's Note: Contextual Nomenclature; HBOT – (Hyper-Baric Oxygen Therapy)

Hype-Baric Chamber (Crate/Tube/ Vampire Vessel/Sex Pod/Bubble/ U-Boot)

   Originally created for deep sea divers as a decompression chamber, HBOT has found numerous uses in wound care, diabetic foot, intracrainal abscess, skin grafts, stroke, migraine, Simon Cowell's cosmetic surgery and sports recovery.

My first crate was an Ebay find. I was locked in a bidding war with Mr. Smith (obviously an alias) and Milford A. Dungwether. The second of whom reported to be long suffering a rare immune disorder in which his body rejected his own skin. “Whole swaths of skin sloughing off of me...”, a shameless pity ploy of course. I directly (after the “sloughing” nonsense) raised my bid to $2500 American.

The dubious Smith was nothing more than a nuisance bidder- $2550 American. Of course anyone who'd put up bid of $2500 will go $2600. Mr. Smith was a ghost-bidder – there's a term for it, don't know it. Unquestionably an agent of or-in-fact the seller him/herself.

Dungwether, reportedly beside himself and “losing all hope” and so on, requested I accept communication from him beyond IM. At first I was blasé and pitiless, “Aren't you busy chasing after your skin?” I retorted. He made no notice and repeated his request and oh, hell, why the fuck not...

I heard nothing from Dungwether for three days. Mr Smith had squeezed my balls out of another $150 American by then – I was now at $2700 A. -

On the 4^th day I was inundated with a trove of tripe bound in a large package shipped via UPS delivery – 2 pounds of paperwork from Dungwether. Amongst the voluminous tome of despair and documentation were personal handwritten notes and letters allegedly from loved ones, co-workers and therapists pleading the man's case – cease and desist was the gist of it all – let the poor bastard have at it. I was repeatedly assumed to be a man of much empathy and compassion, “Of course now you understand Milford's dire predicament...I thank you in advance...for the love of God...” etc and so forth.

In the end I decided, on the chance Dungwether's predicament was indeed authentic/dire/all-of-that, to let my better self assume control and let poor ol' untangle himself from the whole situation – suffice it to say, I relieved his assumed anxiety and dismal suspense with a swift swipe of the finger and clicked the “Buy It Now” button - $3200 American.

If you've not experienced the pure pleasures of amplified oxygen I implore you to do so first chance.

Private clinics are as cheap as $150 per 90minute session. You'll think better. Feel better. It is as if you've crossed a plane into another dimension of reality. You'll feel superior in every way. It's a feeling of limitless possibilities.

After watching some how-to videos on the internet I decided to do some customization of settings.

The results nearly killed me. I suffered a collapsed ear drum- pulmonary embolisms and multiple tooth fractures - This is known as BAROTRAUMA - pretty much you becoming a blackhole of atmospherically enhanced implosion. 

Or something like that. 

A pressure relief valve shot out and shattered the picture window. Ultimately the thing blew apart at the seams. The whole experience was  surreal and I am frequently asked to regale a dinner party attendance with what has become quite a routine. I am absolutely animated in the telling of the misadventure. Guests are frequently in fits of laughter and snorting – choking on food - Port trickling out nasal passages. 

Admittedly I've embellished the story – it's called creative non-fiction or showmanship.

Hyper Baric Chamber malfunction presents a certain amount of fire risk - sometimes I imagine bursting into flames - perhaps shooting out like a rocket engine - tilted at such an angle as to achieve a nice arc out into the evening sky.

A shooting star. 

I like to wear a space helmet around the house and walk slowly and buoyantly like an astronaut.

I had a soft-crate in between and ran about 7.7psi - 7.3 is the factory maximal pressure setting but I found a guy via chatroom that tweaked it up for a case of Red Stripe and conversation as well as a stack of DVD's I'd had in the basement left over from last springs garage sale and some hummus I was about to throw out.

The difference between 7.3 and 7.7psi is, I can tell you, night and day. I ran 7.9 once but blew the valves.

Here's a bit about my last girlfriend Isabella.

She's dead now -

MD: "Well, the intracrainial pressure she's been experiencing - "

'The headaches?'

"Yes, the 'headaches' and as well as the hemiparesis of her right side -"

'The floppy arm thing?'

"mmhmm...the paralysis-"

'The lazy eye?'

"Was that recent?"

'No, she's had that since before I met her - she won't talk about it. I just thought...'
  
 "Unrelated. The paralysis is a result of a an abscess on her brain - the growth creates the pressure..." etc and so on.

 

Gist of it being she was beyond repair. inoperable. The infection spread through out her brain and that beautiful body of hers became a ship without a captain - she was brain dead.

I spoke extensively with the doctor in regards to the risks to myself. As it turns out the infection was a result of a simple (and apparently dirty) tongue piercing. Multiple parts of my person had been exposed to the filthy thing.

And that's when I mentioned (as I was grasping at straws of hope - for myself, obviously at this point) the HBOT and how it was all kind of weird and wonderful (again, for myself) that I spent so much time in the thing. And “If only Isabella had not been such a cunt about it she might well be alive today” I thought to myself while feigning interest in what the useless doctor was going on about. 

 

It's really a cure-all. 

Of course the "doctor" insisted I was never in any danger of infection but these are western doctors - very closed minded – if it's not a treatment you can put down on a prescription pad it's all “alternative medicine” to them, isn't it?

The thing was, in regards to my hyperbaric therapy, Isabella thought the whole thing was bizarre - almost a deal-breaker for her - I had to make up a disease (of the least disgusting/infectious) as to why I needed hyperbaric treatment. I'd remembered reading a story in JAMA - a ghoulish story of a woman who'd been bitten by a Hobo Spider which, the spider (Tegenaria Agrestis), happens to, it's been posited, posses a necrotic venom. Etc, etc.... I then went on an an improvisational tirade as to my 'condition' and that there was not an antidote or cure once infected but only continual, habitual and frequent "dives" in the HBOT chamber.

I was fairly impressed with myself.

One of the problems with Isabella (besides the fact she's dead - such a waste of that beautiful body. Fantastic tits - real ones - it reminds me of just how far we've not come vis a vis brain transplants) was her un-trusting nature. I believed, and later verified, she'd had some positively deep issues in regards to her father (wasn't "there" for her and that, philanderer, lousy gift giving instincts) and so as such she was suspicious of nearly everything that came out of a mans mouth but and obversely, not what came out of his zipper which can be a double edged sword as it proved to be.

Everything's a double-edged sword in theory or practice, some just have larger overall implications is all.

Then so it was this fibrous anxiety and suspicion that compelled her to question me several days later.

"Did you know there's a considerable amount of doubt as to the necrotic constitution of the Hobo Spider's venom - that it's not even PROVEN- only hypothesized? "

To which I flatly replied -  
'I, my dear, am all the proof I need.'

"That doesn't mean ANYTHING"

'Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees has a hyperbaric chamber.'

"Was Derek Jeter bitten by a Hobo Spider?"

'Matt Garza of the Chicago Cubs as well - it's very therapeutic - for sports injuries and spider bites and a million other afflictions.'

"AND (her habit of exaggerating AND at the beginning of an angry rebuttal was rage-inspiring)

we live on the east coast - it's a northwest thing"

'Don't forget Utah. They're commonly found in homes in Utah. Utah, if you'll recall, not located anywhere near the Northwest. Spiders migrate, Isabella. Probably transported by a family that packed up and moved here from Utah. They could be living next door for all we know. A very Mormon like front yard if you ask me.'

"Scott lives next door. He's not from Utah"

'How do you know that? I've never met any of my neighbors'

"I'm more sociable"

'Oh, is that what you call it.'

"What is that supposed to mean?"

'Oh, I think - GOD DAMN IT!'

Then I cut myself slicing a persimmon and spent the rest of the night in the HBOT being insolent via intercom.

Isabella sat across the room, perched on an oak captain's chair she'd dragged out from the dining room so as to be located beneath the corresponding intercom with her book in one hand and the other free and limp, intermittently reaching up to push the 'speak' button to reply to my myriad of grievance.

She was engrossed in another Nicolas Sparks 'novel' constructed for the entire purpose of becoming a Lifetime cable movie put in rotation - the sort of books that defy the intersex reality of real people and as so, are enormously popular with female readers.

Her eyes never left the page even as she'd reach up with her limp, pale and overmoisturized free hand to say things in response to me such as, "Okay" and "If that's how you feel" and "I have an excruciating headache" - in that empty way people who no longer deeply care about each other do – it's a tone not for any other purpose than to be utilized in tired exchanges during the crushing dissolution of a relationships final throws.

 

No doubt she was simultaneously compartmentalized in a cottony dream scape of soggy tripe.

 

Multitasking isn't done well by most men because most men are hostile to the notion. It's deceptive. But it has its own rubric with a short learning curve if you are paying attention.

The longest relationships suffer no such attention. the longest relationships are the ones where two people have symbiotically resolved to not give a shit.

Clever thing of it is that the overall results of multitasking bare results indicating just which task was really being focused upon.

Multitasking is a split personality disorder if you ask me.

"What if I had Steven-Johnson Syndrome? I'd have to live in this thing."

I sort of enjoyed both hearing my voice inside the tube and also, through the speaker of the intercom panel affixed to the wall beside a framed generic quote - "LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE" - If only.

The tone of my voice through the speakers gave my complaints (seemed to me anyway)a sort of metalish gravitas – as if from space beyond orbit. I felt that she should have been taking dictation - valid and sobering points with hints of introspection were being invisibly transported from myself in the pod and broadcast across the room to the woman who's job it was, now, to be my disappointment, my sorrow, depression, anxiety but still - a sounding board available to myself on most week nights.

She sat a little slumped or hunched over disregarding her usual posture rules, feet up on the chair - toes pointing straight out with heels abutted to her ass. Now, wearing her exercise pants that had never been put to the test, Isabella began doing little chortles of mirth. No doubt in reaction to the languorous banalities of the page she was on.

“What is Steven-Johnson syndrome?” She pressed and depressed. Mechanical Isabella.

“It's a necrotic skin thing – like flesh eating itself or something. Or maybe it's sub-dermal but that doesn't sound right. It's pretty fucking terrible I can tell you that ”

The doorbell chimed. Pizza. I set the regulator to it's pre-programmed normalization setting which brings things down inside the tube to ambient atmospheric room pressure and oxygen level (a paltry and anemic 27psi)

I was resurfacing.

I don't eat in the pod.

I don't anymore.

I climbed out of the pod and put on my Thor Steiner windbreaker. I don't wear anything that's not Thor Steiner. Isabella tipped the delivery girl and shuffled over in her bare feet to the kitchen counter. She retrieved two paper plates two napkins and two glasses of tap water. No Ice. She removed two slices and set them down on their respective plates. She completely closed the pizza box and tucked in the little flap insert. She passed me where I stood at the head-end of the counter which, the counter, jutted out in such a length to create the look of a three sided 'island' of formica, and as she'd cleared my backside she flopped the plate on the counter in front of me without even looking and headed back to the vulture stand and rejoined her “novel” and doing all of this not just wordlessly but also sound-effect-less. 

The silence was palpably ringing gloom. I couldn't tell if she was even breathing.

 

It is times such as these I'm afraid to even chew properly for fear the very sound of my consumption might cause her a clear and exquisite psychotic break.

It's a dismal feeling. I wanted to get back in the pod and assume the Lloyd Davis lithotomy position. Read a book. A REAL book. 

I looked at the cut on my finger. There are both aerobic and anaerobic streptococci.